The LG Nitro HD’s camera interface is no different from other devices running the LG Optimus UI skin, seeing that it’s functional and easy to operate, although the settings menu feels a bit cluttered, due to the sheer number of options available.

Camera interface

It might not take the gold medal when it comes to taking photos, but we’re nevertheless satisfied with the decent images that its 8-megapixel auto-focus camera is able to produce. In fact, they’re definitely good enough to use for a 4” x 6” printout, but beyond that, it’ll expose some of its detail deficiencies. Outdoor shots are accompanied with average details and a cooler color production, which is actually more prevalent with indoor shots under artificial lighting. Under low lighting conditions, its overall quality is dulled by some evidence of digital noise and graininess – though, its single LED flash manages to counteract some of the blemishes. As a whole, they’re not great, but undoubtedly acceptable enough to please our eyes.

Samples made with the LG Nitro HD

Strong

Medium

Low light

3ft

5ft

7ft

Indoor samples

Looking over the 1080p videos that we’re able to capture with the handset, the results are more of the same with its average quality. Again, fine details are average at best and accompanied with a distinguishable cooler color reproduction – but they’re supplemented by its smooth 29 frames per second capture and clear audio recording. However, it suffers from some artifacting when panning very quickly, or when moving to different lighting conditions very quickly.

LG Nitro HD Sample Video:

LG Nitro HD Indoor Sample Video:

Multimedia:

Using the Optimus UI 2.0's media player to listen to songs is pretty straightforward. All songs loaded on the smartphone are placed into the playlist where they can be arranged in the order the user pleases. Flip the phone in landscape mode and you get a neat 3D like display of your media library, completed with album art and sorted alphabetically. Lacking equalizer options with the internal speaker, audio quality is average with its balanced tones.

The Optimus UI 2.0's media player

With its 720p display in check, the LG Nitro HD is undeniably regarded as being a suitable HD video watching device – and it doesn’t disappoint with its sizable display. Loading our test video encoded in DivX 1920 x 1080 resolution, it has no problem playing it smoothly and entirely. Simply, our eyes are presented with a visual treat thanks to its beautiful display.

Watching HD videos

Previously, many of LG’s recent Android powered smartphones packed along a dedicated microHDMI port for quick sharing of multimedia content. However, the Nitro HD opts to use an MHL port instead, which means that you’ll need to purchase an optional adapter to gain video out functionality. Nevertheless, we’re able to instantly get that gratifying mirrored experience right away – then again, you can opt to use the SmartShare app to do it wirelessly via DLNA.

Packaged along with a 16GB microSD card, it’s sufficient to handle the needs of most people – though, you can always replace it with a 32GB card instead. Meanwhile, it also packs 1.81GB of internal storage that’s strictly reserved for apps.

Software:

Looking over some of the preloaded apps on the LG Nitro HD, there’s nothing of particular interest since it boasts all of the commonly packaged apps we find with most AT&T devices. Of course, AT&T’s presence is in full force with things like AT&T Code Scanner, AT&T FamilyMap, AT&T Navigator, Live TV, and myAT&T. On the other hand, there are still plenty of other third party apps that might appeal to certain individuals – such as Amazon Kindle, MOG Music, Polaris Office, Qik Lite, Wi-Fi Share, and YPmobile.

Exactly the G2x on stock gingerbread runs very smooth and lag free and it only is clocked at 1ghz dual core with only 512mb of ram. While you have phones like the rezound running 1.5ghz dual core and 1gb of ram and yet it can be sluggish at times. Sense UI is to blame for that just like LGs UI is as well. Put a stock android rom on this and it would be insanely fast and zippy.

I haven't used LG phones much, but if by "software" you mean their design, I think it's way nicer than Samsung's ugly TouchWiz design. I'm just shocked that their Optimus Sense is actually designed well and I never paid attention to LG phones.

Yeah true but so is Galaxy S2 t-mobile version and HTC amaze are laggy and a lot of other high-end smartphones.

It's the "snapdragon" processor that doesn't have a great reputation, and also the maximum software to hardware optimization which most android powered devices lack. That's why iphones and recent windows phones, run by lower specs perform way more smoothly, because they're optimized well in that area.

how does this get a 8.0 and the skyrocket get a 7.5 score. compare the pros vs the cons of both and i'm sure the majority would much rather have the skyrocket with a "bland design" than "sluggish performance" of the nitro. the only thing the nitro has over the skyrocket is it's hd screen.

1.5 mbps on HSPA+ is pretty neat, considering the max you can get i believe is 2mbps.

I like the display, but the UI is kinda suckish, i remember how motoblur use to be just as worse or even worse, now its one of the best ones out there. LG needs to step it up, or stick into making TV's or dishwashers.

Everbody's complaining about lagging. This kind of lag, which is hardly noticable is acceptable to me. Btw the first HD screen thing: it's true that it's not the first HD screener, but the first one to use RGB matrix, which is really noticable. Just put this phone next to a Nexus and a Rezound. You'll see the difference.
I like the look of the phone, it's simple and cool, like the Nexus (and don't tell me the Nexus looks better :D)

All of you that hate LG not sure why exactly because all manufactures have their issues and you are just not mentioning those. Stop haten on LG.... Have any of you even played with the Nitro or are you all going by past devices or isolated issues? I can tell you from experience that this device is outstanding and deserves recognition! Go LG

Seeing 8 out of 10 score for this phone I now highly doubt the competence of this website.

The phone is a joke, totally. The only good about it is the screen, which no doubt is the best at the time it was released, well, to be fair, camera is also surprisingly good. That's about it.

The battery drains in 3-4 hours with no screen active if you use any kind of heavy data (not even LTE data), even voice chat via google talk or skype will kill the battery in no time.

The compass is defective, and seems to be hardware defection (google navigator when switched to walking spins your direction 360 degree). Email support refuse to admit it, blaming on apps I'm using (all of them???), however their official forum moderators admitted the problem.

If you own headset for iPhone - forget it, it will not work on Nitro, it will only work as headphone, mic most probably wont.

The UI is laggy, even after hard reset (aka wipe user data). After some usage the lag become so bad that sometimes you don't know did it register your tap or not, waiting 1-2 seconds and tapping again more often then not produce double tap.

The US version (actually Nitro HD) has so much room wasted around clock, could fit an extra icon, this is specifically noticeable if you switch to 24H mode.

The community development for the phone is totally dead, because any good coders know better then wasting their time on this piece of crap - can't blame them.

ICS update luckily will be released this summer, it's over 6 month after release? And that's for the phone that was designed for ICS!!! Wait to go LG!

If you are looking for a decent phone DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE! It's not worth a $100, let alone it's release price at $600.

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